NEW ZEALANDERS. 
347 
ferent houses or workshops as he passed along, 
offered the young negroes for sale ; yet scarcely 
a day passed while we were in the town, during 
which we did not meet these heartless traffickers 
in human beings thus employed. In the English 
or Portuguese families with which we had any 
opportunities of becoming acquainted, although 
the domestic slaves did not appear to be treated 
with that unkindness which the slaves in the 
field often experience, yet, even here, the whip 
was frequently employed in a manner, and under 
circumstances, revolting to every feeling of hu¬ 
manity. 
The slaves in Rio Janeiro may, however, be 
said to live in ease and comfort, when their cir¬ 
cumstances are compared with those of New Zea¬ 
land. Here their means of subsistence is scanty and 
precarious, the treatment is barbarous in the ex¬ 
treme, their lives are held in light estimation, and 
often taken in the most brutal manner, for very 
trivial causes, while their bodies furnish a hor¬ 
rible repast for the owner who has murdered them. 
During our stay, the Missionaries related some 
very affecting accounts of the destruction of slaves 
by their masters; and the following has been 
published by the Missionaries residing among the 
people. A female slave ran away from Atoai, a 
chief, and her retreat was for some time unknown 
to her master; at length he saw her sitting with 
some natives at Koranareka, near his residence. 
He led her away, tied her to a tree, and shot her. 
Captain Duke, of the Sisters, hearing of the cir¬ 
cumstance, went to the place, and found the body 
of the girl prepared for baking in a native oven, 
the large bones of the legs and arms having been 
cut out. On his expostulating, they said it was 
